Thursday, October 23, 2008

Regarding today's quote o' the day

The Gwen Ifil quote-not the phone conversation quote. Upon a little bit of relfection I think that quote needs to be fleshed out a little bit, because on the surface it would seem to be saying that just the answers are important no matter what. But there's a difference between a guy on the street who was at his own home, minding his own business, and a moderator of a political debate. One is supposed to be objective. The other is not. That Joe the Plumber is being so harshly shredded by the media is all the more galling-he never signed up to be objective. He's a voter and he had a question.

This isn't to say that complete objectivity should be the gold standard in a debate. On the contrary-I think the Republican should be only asked questions by a Democrat and the Democrat should only be asked questions by a Republican. And then maybe during the last 10-15 minues or so the candidates should be allowed to put forth their own statements to clarify whatever they'd like. But Republicans should not have to be the only ones who ever get asked any real questions. That in a debate Obama was never asked by a moderator about Bill Ayers or Annenburg or Jeremiah Wright or the $800K he gave ACORN or his foreign campaign donations or that he was the #2 recipient of FNMA/FHLMC money in the senate or his 129 'present' votes in the Illinois state senate or his vote against the born alive bill is just plain cowardly.

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